No More Learning

Secondly, he was ordered to act
always at a distance from the king. Thirdly, to keep always a body of
twenty thousand men to observe the Prussian army. Fourthly, to observe
very closely the motions of the king, for important reasons. Fifthly,
to hazard nothing; but to pretend want of reinforcements, or the
absence of Bellisle.

The king now, with great reason, considered himself as disengaged from
the confederacy, being deserted by the Saxons, and betrayed by the
French; he, therefore, accepted the mediation of king George, and, in
three weeks after the battle of Czaslaw, made peace with the queen of
Hungary, who granted to him the whole province of Silesia, a country
of such extent and opulence, that he is said to receive from it one
third part of his revenues. By one of the articles of this treaty it
is stipulated, "that neither should assist the enemies of the other. "

The queen of Hungary, thus disentangled on one side, and set free from
the most formidable of her enemies, soon persuaded the Saxons to
peace; took possession of Bavaria; drove the emperour, after all his
imaginary conquests, to the shelter of a neutral town, where he was
treated as a fugitive; and besieged the French in Prague, in the city
which they had taken from her.

Having thus obtained Silesia, the king of Prussia returned to his own
capital, where he reformed his laws, forbade the torture of criminals,
concluded a defensive alliance with England, and applied himself to
the augmentation of his army.

This treaty of peace with the queen of Hungary was one of the first
proofs given by the king of Prussia, of the secrecy of his counsels.
Bellisle, the French general, was with him in the camp, as a friend
and coadjutor in appearance, but in truth a spy, and a writer of
intelligence. Men who have great confidence in their own penetration
are often by that confidence deceived; they imagine that they can
pierce through all the involutions of intrigue, without the diligence
necessary to weaker minds, and, therefore, sit idle and secure; they
believe that none can hope to deceive them, and, therefore, that none
will try. Bellisle, with all his reputation of sagacity, though he was
in the Prussian camp, gave, every day, fresh assurances of the king's
adherence to his allies; while Broglio, who commanded the army at a
distance, discovered sufficient reason to suspect his desertion.
Broglio was slighted, and Bellisle believed, till, on the 11th of
June, the treaty was signed, and the king declared his resolution to
keep a neutrality.

This is one of the great performances of polity which mankind seem
agreed to celebrate and admire; yet, to all this nothing was necessary
but the determination of a very few men to be silent.

From this time the queen of Hungary proceeded with an uninterrupted
torrent of success. The French, driven from station to station, and
deprived of fortress after fortress, were, at last, enclosed with
their two generals, Bellisle and Broglio, in the walls of Prague,
which they had stored with all provisions necessary to a town
besieged, and where they defended themselves three months before any
prospect appeared of relief.

The Austrians, having been engaged chiefly in the field, and in sudden
and tumultuary excursions, rather than a regular war, had no great
degree of skill in attacking or defending towns. They, likewise, would
naturally consider all the mischiefs done to the city, as falling,
ultimately, upon themselves; and, therefore, were willing to gain it
by time rather than by force.

It was apparent that, how long soever Prague might be defended, it
must be yielded at last, and, therefore, all arts were tried to obtain
an honourable capitulation. The messengers from the city were sent
back, sometimes unheard, but always with this answer: "That no terms
would be allowed, but that they should yield themselves prisoners of
war. "

The condition of the garrison was, in the eyes of all Europe,
desperate; but the French, to whom the praise of spirit and activity
cannot be denied, resolved to make an effort for the honour of their
arms. Maillebois was at that time encamped with his army in
Westphalia. Orders were sent him to relieve Prague. The enterprise was
considered as romantick. Maillebois was a march of forty days distant
from Bohemia, the passes were narrow, and the ways foul; and it was
likely that Prague would be taken before he could reach it. The march
was, however, begun: the army, being joined by that of count Saxe,
consisted of fifty thousand men, who, notwithstanding all the
difficulties which two Austrian armies could put in their way, at last
entered Bohemia. The siege of Prague, though not raised, was remitted,
and a communication was now opened to it with the country. But the
Austrians, by perpetual intervention, hindered the garrison from
joining their friends. The officers of Maillebois incited him to a
battle, because the army was hourly lessening by the want of
provisions; but, instead of pressing on to Prague, he retired into
Bavaria, and completed the ruin of the emperour's territories.

The court of France, disappointed and offended, conferred the chief
command upon Broglio, who escaped from the besiegers with very little
difficulty, and kept the Austrians employed till Bellisle, by a sudden
sally, quitted Prague, and without any great loss joined the main
army. Broglio then retired over the Rhine into the French dominions,
wasting, in his retreat, the country which he had undertaken to
protect, and burning towns, and destroying magazines of corn, with
such wantonness, as gave reason to believe that he expected
commendation from his court for any mischiefs done, by whatever means.

The Austrians pursued their advantages, recovered all their strong
places, in some of which French garrisons had been left, and made
themselves masters of Bavaria, by taking not only Munich, the capital,
but Ingolstadt, the strongest fortification in the elector's
dominions, where they found a great number of cannon and a quantity of
ammunition, intended, in the dreams of projected greatness, for the
siege of Vienna, all the archives of the state, the plate and
ornaments of the electoral palace, and what had been considered as
most worthy of preservation. Nothing but the warlike stores were taken
away. An oath of allegiance to the queen was required of the
Bavarians, but without any explanation, whether temporary or
perpetual.

The emperour lived at Frankfort, in the security that was allowed to
neutral places, but without much respect from the German princes,
except that, upon some objections made by the queen to the validity of
his election, the king of Prussia declared himself determined to
support him in the imperial dignity, with all his power.

This may be considered as a token of no great affection to the queen
of Hungary, but it seems not to have raised much alarm. The German
princes were afraid of new broils. To contest the election of an
emperour, once invested and acknowledged, would be to overthrow the
whole Germanick constitution. Perhaps no election by plurality of
suffrages was ever made among human beings, to which it might not be
objected, that voices were procured by illicit influence.

Some suspicions, however, were raised by the king's declaration, which
he endeavoured to obviate by ordering his ministers to declare at
London and at Vienna, that he was resolved not to violate the treaty
of Breslaw. This declaration was sufficiently ambiguous, and could not
satisfy those whom it might silence. But this was not a time for nice
disquisitions; to distrust the king of Prussia might have provoked
him, and it was most convenient to consider him as a friend, till he
appeared openly as an enemy.

About the middle of the year 1744, he raised new alarms by collecting
his troops and putting them in motion. The earl of Hindford about this
time demanded the troops stipulated for the protection of Hanover;
not, perhaps, because they were thought necessary, but that the king's
designs might be guessed from his answer, which was, that troops were
not granted for the defence of any country till that country was in
danger, and that he could not believe the elector of Hanover to be in
much dread of an invasion, since he had withdrawn the native troops,
and put them into the pay of England.

He had, undoubtedly, now formed designs which made it necessary that
his troops should be kept together, and the time soon came when the
scene was to be opened. Prince Charles of Lorrain, having chased the
French out of Bavaria, lay, for some months, encamped on the Rhine,
endeavouring to gain a passage into Alsace. His attempts had long been
evaded by the skill and vigilance of the French general, till, at
last, June 21, 1744, he executed his design, and lodged his army in
the French dominions, to the surprise and joy of a great part of
Europe. It was now expected that the territories of France would, in
their turn, feel the miseries of war; and the nation, which so long
kept the world in alarm, be taught, at last, the value of peace.

The king of Prussia now saw the Austrian troops at a great distance
from him, engaged in a foreign country against the most powerful of
all their enemies. Now, therefore, was the time to discover that he
had lately made a treaty at Frankfort with the emperour, by which he
had engaged, "that as the court of Vienna and its allies appeared
backward to reestablish the tranquillity of the empire, and more
cogent methods appeared necessary; he, being animated with a desire of
cooperating towards the pacification of Germany, should make an
expedition for the conquest of Bohemia, and to put it into the
possession of the emperour, his heirs and successours, for ever; in
gratitude for which the emperour should resign to him and his
successours a certain number of lordships, which are now part of the
kingdom of Bohemia. His imperial majesty likewise guaranties to the
king of Prussia the perpetual possession of upper Silesia; and the
king guaranties to the emperour the perpetual possession of upper
Austria, as soon as he shall have occupied it by conquest. "

It is easy to discover that the king began the war upon other motives
than zeal for peace; and that, whatever respect he was willing to show
to the emperour, he did not purpose to assist him without reward. In
prosecution of this treaty he put his troops in motion; and, according
to his promise, while the Austrians were invading France, he invaded
Bohemia.

Princes have this remaining of humanity, that they think themselves
obliged not to make war without a reason. Their reasons are, indeed,
not always very satisfactory.

Lewis the fourteenth seemed to think his own glory a sufficient motive
for the invasion of Holland. The czar attacked Charles of Sweden,
because he had not been treated with sufficient respect when he made a
journey in disguise. The king of Prussia, having an opportunity of
attacking his neighbour, was not long without his reasons. On July
30th, he published his declaration, in which he declares:

"That he can no longer stand an idle spectator of the troubles in
Germany, but finds himself obliged to make use of force to restore the
power of the laws, and the authority of the emperour.

"That the queen of Hungary has treated the emperour's hereditary
dominions with inexpressible cruelty.

"That Germany has been overrun with foreign troops which have marched
through neutral countries without the customary requisitions.

"That the emperour's troops have been attacked under neutral
fortresses, and obliged to abandon the empire, of which their master
is the head.

"That the imperial dignity has been treated with indecency by the
Hungarian troops.

"The queen, declaring the election of the emperour void, and the diet
of Frankfort illegal, had not only violated the imperial dignity, but
injured all the princes who have the right of election.

"That he had no particular quarrel with the queen of Hungary; and that
he desires nothing for himself, and only enters as an auxiliary into a
war for the liberties of Germany.

"That the emperour had offered to quit his pretension to the dominions
of Austria, on condition that his hereditary countries be restored to
him.

"That this proposal had been made to the king of England at Hanau, and
rejected in such a manner as showed, that the king of England had no
intention to restore peace, but rather to make his advantage of the
troubles.

"That the mediation of the Dutch had been desired; but that they
declined to interpose, knowing the inflexibility of the English and
Austrian courts.

"That the same terms were again offered at Vienna, and again rejected;
that, therefore, the queen must impute it to her own councils, that
her enemies find new allies.

"That he is not fighting for any interest of his own, that he demands
nothing for himself; but is determined to exert all his powers in
defence of the emperour, in vindication of the right of election, and
in support of the liberties of Germany, which the queen of Hungary
would enslave. "

When this declaration was sent to the Prussian minister in England, it
was accompanied with a remonstrance to the king, in which many of the
foregoing positions were repeated; the emperour's candour and
disinterestedness were magnified; the dangerous designs of the
Austrians were displayed; it was imputed to them, as the most flagrant
violation of the Germanick constitution, that they had driven the
emperour's troops out of the empire; the publick spirit and generosity
of his Prussian majesty were again heartily declared; and it was said,
that this quarrel having no connexion with English interests, the
English ought not to interpose.

Austria and all her allies were put into amazement by this
declaration, which, at once, dismounted them from the summit of
success, and obliged them to fight through the war a second time. What
succours, or what promises, Prussia received from France, was never
publickly known; but it is not to be doubted that a prince, so
watchful of opportunity, sold assistance, when it was so much wanted,
at the highest rate; nor can it be supposed that he exposed himself to
so much hazard only for the freedom of Germany, and a few petty
districts in Bohemia.

The French, who, from ravaging the empire at discretion, and wasting
whatever they found either among enemies or friends, were now driven
into their own dominions, and, in their own dominions, were insulted
and pursued, were, on a sudden, by this new auxiliary, restored to
their former superiority, at least were disburdened of their invaders,
and delivered from their terrours. And all the enemies of the house of
Bourbon saw, with indignation and amazement, the recovery of that
power which they had, with so much cost and bloodshed, brought low,
and which their animosity and elation had disposed them to imagine yet
lower than it was.

The queen of Hungary still retained her firmness. The Prussian
declaration was not long without an answer, which was transmitted to
the European princes, with some observations on the Prussian
minister's remonstrance to the court of Vienna, which he was ordered
by his master to read to the Austrian council, but not to deliver. The
same caution was practised before, when the Prussians, after the
emperour's death, invaded Silesia. This artifice of political debate
may, perhaps, be numbered by the admirers of greatness among the
refinements of conduct; but, as it is a method of proceeding not very
difficult to be contrived or practised, as it can be of very rare use
to honesty or wisdom, and as it has been long known to that class of
men whose safety depends upon secrecy, though hitherto applied chiefly
in petty cheats and slight transactions; I do not see that it can much
advance the reputation of regal understanding, or, indeed, that it can
add more to the safety, than it takes away from the honour of him that
shall adopt it.

The queen, in her answer, after charging the king of Prussia with
breach of the treaty of Breslaw, and observing how much her enemies
will exult to see the peace now the third time broken by him,
declares:

"That she had no intention to injure the rights of the electors, and
that she calls in question not the event, but the manner of the
election.

"That she had spared the emperour's troops with great tenderness, and
that they were driven out of the empire, only because they were in the
service of France.

"That she is so far from disturbing the peace of the empire, that the
only commotions now raised in it are the effect of the armaments of
the king of Prussia. "

Nothing is more tedious than publick records, when they relate to
affairs which, by distance of time or place, lose their power to
interest the reader. Every thing grows little, as it grows remote; and
of things thus diminished, it is sufficient to survey the aggregate
without a minute examination of the parts.

It is easy to perceive, that, if the king of Prussia's reasons be
sufficient, ambition or animosity can never want a plea for violence
and invasion. What he charges upon the queen of Hungary, the waste of
country, the expulsion of the Bavarians, and the employment of foreign
troops, is the unavoidable consequence of a war inflamed on either
side to the utmost violence. All these grievances subsisted when he
made the peace, and, therefore, they could very little justify its
breach.

It is true, that every prince of the empire is obliged to support the
imperial dignity, and assist the emperour, when his rights are
violated. And every subsequent contract must be understood in a sense
consistent with former obligations. Nor had the king power to make a
peace on terms contrary to that constitution by which he held a place
among the Germanick electors. But he could have easily discovered,
that not the emperour, but the duke of Bavaria, was the queen's enemy;
not the administrator of the imperial power, but the claimant of the
Austrian dominions. Nor did his allegiance to the emperour, supposing
the emperour injured, oblige him to more than a succour of ten
thousand men. But ten thousand men could not conquer Bohemia, and
without the conquest of Bohemia he could receive no reward for the
zeal and fidelity which he so loudly professed.

The success of this enterprise he had taken all possible precaution to
secure. He was to invade a country guarded only by the faith of
treaties, and, therefore, left unarmed, and unprovided of all defence.
He had engaged the French to attack prince Charles, before he should
repass the Rhine, by which the Austrians would, at least, have been
hindered from a speedy march into Bohemia: they were, likewise, to
yield him such other assistance as he might want.

Relying, therefore, upon the promises of the French, he resolved to
attempt the ruin of the house of Austria, and, in August, 1744, broke
into Bohemia, at the head of a hundred and four thousand men. When he
entered the country, he published a proclamation, promising, that his
army should observe the strictest discipline, and that those who made
no resistance should be suffered to remain in quiet in their
habitations. He required that all arms, in the custody of whomsoever
they might be placed, should be given up, and put into the hands of
publick officers. He still declared himself to act only as an
auxiliary to the emperour, and with no other design than to establish
peace and tranquillity throughout Germany, his dear country.

In this proclamation there is one paragraph, of which I do not
remember any precedent. He threatens, that, if any peasant should be
found with arms, he shall be hanged without further inquiry; and that,
if any lord shall connive at his vassals keeping arms in their
custody, his village shall be reduced to ashes.

It is hard to find upon what pretence the king of Prussia could treat
the Bohemians as criminals, for preparing to defend their native
country, or maintaining their allegiance to their lawful sovereign
against an invader, whether he appears principal or auxiliary, whether
he professes to intend tranquillity or confusion.

His progress was such as gave great hopes to the enemies of Austria:
like Caesar, he conquered as he advanced, and met with no opposition,
till he reached the walls of Prague. The indignation and resentment of
the queen of Hungary may be easily conceived; the alliance of
Frankfort was now laid open to all Europe; and the partition of the
Austrian dominions was again publickly projected. They were to be
shared among the emperour, the king of Prussia, the elector Palatine,
and the landgrave of Hesse. All the powers of Europe who had dreamed
of controlling France, were awakened to their former terrours; all
that had been done was now to be done again; and every court, from the
straits of Gibraltar to the Frozen sea, was filled with exultation or
terrour, with schemes of conquest, or precautions for defence.

The king, delighted with his progress, and expecting, like other
mortals elated with success, that his prosperity could not be
interrupted, continued his march, and began, in the latter end of
September, the siege of Prague. He had gained several of the outer
posts, when he was informed that the convoy, which attended his
artillery, was attacked by an unexpected party of the Austrians. The
king went immediately to their assistance, with the third part of his
army, and found his troops put to flight, and the Austrians hasting
away with his cannons: such a loss would have disabled him at once. He
fell upon the Austrians, whose number would not enable them to
withstand him, recovered his artillery, and, having also defeated
Bathiani, raised his batteries; and, there being no artillery to be
placed against him, he destroyed a great part of the city. He then
ordered four attacks to be made at once, and reduced the besieged to
such extremities, that in fourteen days the governour was obliged to
yield the place.

At the attack, commanded by Schwerin, a grenadier is reported to have
mounted the bastion alone, and to have defended himself, for some
time, with his sword, till his followers mounted after him; for this
act of bravery, the king made him a lieutenant, and gave him a patent
of nobility.

Nothing now remained but that the Austrians should lay aside all
thought of invading France, and apply their whole power to their own
defence. Prince Charles, at the first news of the Prussian invasion,
prepared to repass the Rhine. This the French, according to their
contract with the king of Prussia, should have attempted to hinder;
but they knew, by experience, the Austrians would not be beaten
without resistance, and that resistance always incommodes an
assailant. As the king of Prussia rejoiced in the distance of the
Austrians, whom he considered as entangled in the French territories;
the French rejoiced in the necessity of their return, and pleased
themselves with the prospect of easy conquests, while powers, whom
they considered with equal malevolence, should be employed in
massacring each other.

Prince Charles took the opportunity of bright moonshine to repass the
Rhine; and Noailles, who had early intelligence of his motions, gave
him very little disturbance, but contented himself with attacking the
rearguard, and, when they retired to the main body, ceased his
pursuit.

The king, upon the reduction of Prague, struck a medal, which had on
one side a plan of the town, with this inscription:

"Prague taken by the king of Prussia,
September 16, 1744;
For the third time in three years. "

On the other side were two verses, in which he prayed, "that his
conquests might produce peace. " He then marched forward with the
rapidity which constitutes his military character; took possession of
almost all Bohemia, and began to talk of entering Austria and
besieging Vienna.

The queen was not yet wholly without resource. The elector of Saxony,
whether invited or not, was not comprised in the union of Frankfort;
and, as every sovereign is growing less as his next neighbour is
growing greater, he could not heartily wish success to a confederacy
which was to aggrandize the other powers of Germany. The Prussians
gave him, likewise, a particular and immediate provocation to oppose
them; for, when they departed to the conquest of Bohemia, with all the
elation of imaginary success, they passed through his dominions with
unlicensed and contemptuous disdain of his authority. As the approach
of prince Charles gave a new prospect of events, he was easily
persuaded to enter into an alliance with the queen, whom he furnished
with a very large body of troops.

The king of Prussia having left a garrison in Prague, which he
commanded to put the burghers to death, if they left their houses in
the night, went forward to take the other towns and fortresses,
expecting, perhaps, that prince Charles would be interrupted in his
march; but the French, though they appeared to follow him, either
could not, or would not, overtake him.

In a short time, by marches pressed on with the utmost eagerness,
Charles reached Bohemia, leaving the Bavarians to regain the
possession of the wasted plains of their country, which their enemies,
who still kept the strong places, might again seize at will. At the
approach of the Austrian army, the courage of the king of Prussia
seemed to have failed him. He retired from post to post, and evacuated
town after town, and fortress after fortress, without resistance, or
appearance of resistance, as if he was resigning them to the rightful
owners.

It might have been expected, that he should have made some effort to
rescue Prague; but, after a faint attempt to dispute the passage of
the Elbe, he ordered his garrison of eleven thousand men to quit the
place. They left behind them their magazines and heavy artillery,
among which were seven pieces of remarkable excellence, called "the
seven electors. " But they took with them their field cannon, and a
great number of carriages, laden with stores and plunder, which they
were forced to leave, in their way, to the Saxons and Austrians that
harassed their march. They, at last, entered Silesia, with the loss of
about a third part.

The king of Prussia suffered much in his retreat; for, besides the
military stores, which he left every where behind him, even to the
clothes of his troops, there was a want of provisions in his army,
and, consequently, frequent desertions and many diseases; and a
soldier sick or killed was equally lost to a flying army.

At last he reentered his own territories, and, having stationed his
troops in places of security, returned, for a time, to Berlin, where
he forbade all to speak either ill or well of the campaign.

To what end such a prohibition could conduce, it is difficult to
discover: there is no country in which men can be forbidden to know
what they know, and what is universally known may as well be spoken.
It is true, that in popular governments seditious discourses may
inflame the vulgar; but in such governments they cannot be restrained,
and in absolute monarchies they are of little effect.

When the Prussians invaded Bohemia, and this whole nation was fired
with resentment, the king of England gave orders in his palace, that
none should mention his nephew with disrespect; by this command he
maintained the decency necessary between princes, without enforcing,
and, probably, without expecting obedience, but in his own presence.

The king of Prussia's edict regarded only himself, and, therefore, it
is difficult to tell what was his motive, unless he intended to spare
himself the mortification of absurd and illiberal flattery, which, to
a mind stung with disgrace, must have been in the highest degree
painful and disgusting.

Moderation in prosperity is a virtue very difficult to all mortals;
forbearance of revenge, when revenge is within reach, is scarcely ever
to be found among princes. Now was the time when the queen of Hungary
might, perhaps, have made peace on her own terms; but keenness of
resentment, and arrogance of success, withheld her from the due use of
the present opportunity. It is said, that the king of Prussia, in his
retreat, sent letters to prince Charles, which were supposed to
contain ample concessions, but were sent back unopened. The king of
England offered, likewise, to mediate between them; but his
propositions were rejected at Vienna, where a resolution was taken,
not only to revenge the interruption of their success on the Rhine, by
the recovery of Silesia, but to reward the Saxons for their seasonable
help, by giving them part of the Prussian dominions.

In the beginning of the year 1745, died the emperour Charles of
Bavaria; the treaty of Frankfort was consequently at an end; and the
king of Prussia, being no longer able to maintain the character of
auxiliary to the emperour, and having avowed no other reason for the
war, might have honourably withdrawn his forces, and, on his own
principles, have complied with terms of peace; but no terms were
offered him; the queen pursued him with the utmost ardour of
hostility, and the French left him to his own conduct and his own
destiny.

His Bohemian conquests were already lost; and he was now chased back
into Silesia, where, at the beginning of the year, the war continued
in an equilibration by alternate losses and advantages. In April, the
elector of Bavaria, seeing his dominions overrun by the Austrians, and
receiving very little succour from the French, made a peace with the
queen of Hungary upon easy conditions, and the Austrians had more
troops to employ against Prussia.

But the revolutions of war will not suffer human presumption to remain
long unchecked. The peace with Bavaria was scarcely concluded when,
the battle of Fontenoy was lost, and all the allies of Austria called
upon her to exert her utmost power for the preservation of the Low
Countries; and, a few days after the loss at Fontenoy, the first
battle between the Prussians and the combined army of Austrians and
Saxons, was fought at Niedburg in Silesia.

The particulars of this battle were variously reported by the
different parties, and published in the journals of that time; to
transcribe them would be tedious and useless, because accounts of
battles are not easily understood, and because there are no means of
determining to which of the relations credit should be given. It is
sufficient that they all end in claiming or allowing a complete
victory to the king of Prussia, who gained all the Austrian artillery,
killed four thousand, took seven thousand prisoners, with the loss,
according to the Prussian narrative, of only sixteen hundred men.

He now advanced again into Bohemia, where, however, he made no great
progress. The queen of Hungary, though defeated, was not subdued. She
poured in her troops from all parts to the reinforcement of prince
Charles, and determined to continue the struggle with all her power.
The king saw that Bohemia was an unpleasing and inconvenient theatre
of war, in which he should be ruined by a miscarriage, and should get
little by a victory. Saxony was left defenceless, and, if it was
conquered, might be plundered.

He, therefore, published a declaration against the elector of Saxony,
and, without waiting for reply, invaded his dominions. This invasion
produced another battle at Standentz, which ended, as the former, to
the advantage of the Prussians. The Austrians had some advantage in
the beginning; and their irregular troops, who are always daring, and
are always ravenous, broke into the Prussian camp, and carried away
the military chest. But this was easily repaired by the spoils of
Saxony.

The queen of Hungary was still inflexible, and hoped that fortune
would, at last, change. She recruited once more her army, and prepared
to invade the territories of Brandenburg; but the king of Prussia's
activity prevented all her designs. One part of his forces seized
Leipsic, and the other once more defeated the Saxons; the king of
Poland fled from his dominions; prince Charles retired into Bohemia.
The king of Prussia entered Dresden as a conqueror, exacted very
severe contributions from the whole country, and the Austrians and
Saxons were, at last, compelled to receive from him such a peace as he
would grant. He imposed no severe conditions, except the payment of
the contributions, made no new claim of dominions, and, with the
elector Palatine, acknowledged the duke of Tuscany for emperour.

The lives of princes, like the histories of nations, have their
periods. We shall here suspend our narrative of the king of Prussia,
who was now at the height of human greatness, giving laws to his
enemies, and courted by all the powers of Europe.




BROWNE.


Though the writer of the following essays [64] seems to have had the
fortune, common among men of letters, of raising little curiosity
after his private life, and has, therefore, few memorials preserved of
his felicities and misfortunes; yet, because an edition of a
posthumous work appears imperfect and neglected, without some account
of the author, it was thought necessary to attempt the gratification
of that curiosity which naturally inquires by what peculiarities of
nature or fortune eminent men have been distinguished, how uncommon
attainments have been gained, and what influence learning had on its
possessours, or virtue on its teachers.

Sir Thomas Browne was born at London, in the parish of St. Michael in
Cheapside, on the 19th of October, 1605 [65]. His father was a
merchant, of an ancient family at Upton, in Cheshire. Of the name or
family of his mother I find no account.

Of his childhood or youth there is little known, except that he lost
his father very early; that he was, according to the common fate of
orphans [66], defrauded by one of his guardians; and that he was
placed, for his education, at the school of Winchester.

His mother, having taken three thousand pounds [67], as the third part
of her husband's property, left her son, by consequence, six thousand,
a large fortune for a man destined to learning, at that time, when
commerce had not yet filled the nation with nominal riches. But it
happened to him, as to many others, to be made poorer by opulence; for
his mother soon married sir Thomas Dutton, probably by the inducement
of her fortune; and he was left to the rapacity of his guardian,
deprived now of both his parents, and, therefore, helpless, and
unprotected.

He was removed in the beginning of the year 1623, from Winchester to
Oxford [68], and entered a gentleman-commoner of Broadgate hall, which
was soon afterwards endowed, and took the name of Pembroke college,
from the earl of Pembroke, then chancellor of the university. He was
admitted to the degree of bachelor of arts, January 31, 1626-7; being,
as Wood remarks, the first man of eminence graduated from the new
college, to which the zeal or gratitude of those that love it most,
can wish little better than that it may long proceed as it began.

Having afterwards taken his degree of master of arts, he turned his
studies to physick [69], and practised it for some time in
Oxfordshire; but soon afterwards, either induced by curiosity, or
invited by promises, he quitted his settlement, and accompanied his
father-in-law [70], who had some employment in Ireland, in a
visitation of the forts and castles, which the state of Ireland then
made necessary.

He that has once prevailed on himself to break his connexions of
acquaintance, and begin a wandering life, very easily continues it.
Ireland had, at that time, very little to offer to the observation of
a man of letters; he, therefore, passed into France and Italy [71];
made some stay at Montpellier and Padua, which were then the
celebrated schools of physick; and, returning home through Holland,
procured himself to be created doctor of physick at Leyden.

When he began his travels, or when be concluded them, there is no
certain account; nor do there remain any observations made by him in
his passage through those countries which he visited. To consider,
therefore, what pleasure or instruction might have been received from
the remarks of a man so curious and diligent, would be voluntarily to
indulge a painful reflection, and load the imagination with a wish,
which, while it is formed, is known to be vain. It is, however, to be
lamented, that those who are most capable of improving mankind, very
frequently neglect to communicate their knowledge; either because it
is more pleasing to gather ideas than to impart them, or because, to
minds naturally great, few things appear of so much importance as to
deserve the notice of the publick.

About the year 1634 [72], he is supposed to have returned to London;
and the next year to have written his celebrated treatise, called
Religio Medici, "the religion of a physician [73]," which he declares
himself never to have intended for the press, having composed it only
for his own exercise and entertainment. It, indeed, contains many
passages, which, relating merely to his own person, can be of no great
importance to the publick; but when it was written, it happened to him
as to others, he was too much pleased with his performance, not to
think that it might please others as much; he, therefore, communicated
it to his friends, and receiving, I suppose, that exuberant applause
with which every man repays the grant of perusing a manuscript, he was
not very diligent to obstruct his own praise by recalling his papers,
but suffered them to wander from hand to hand, till, at last, without
his own consent, they were, in 1642, given to a printer.

This has, perhaps, sometimes befallen others; and this, I am willing
to believe, did really happen to Dr. Browne: but there is, surely,
some reason to doubt the truth of the complaint so frequently made of
surreptitious editions. A song, or an epigram, may be easily printed
without the author's knowledge; because it may be learned when it is
repeated, or may be written out with very little trouble; but a long
treatise, however elegant, is not often copied by mere zeal or
curiosity, but may be worn out in passing from hand to hand, before it
is multiplied by a transcript. It is easy to convey an imperfect book,
by a distant hand, to the press, and plead the circulation of a false
copy, as an excuse for publishing the true, or to correct what is
found faulty or offensive, and charge the errours on the transcriber's
depravations.

This is a stratagem, by which an author, panting for fame, and yet
afraid of seeming to challenge it, may at once gratify his vanity, and
preserve the appearance of modesty; may enter the lists, and secure a
retreat; and this candour might suffer to pass undetected, as an
innocent fraud, but that, indeed, no fraud is innocent; for the
confidence which makes the happiness of society is, in some degree,
diminished by every man whose practice is at variance with his words.

The Religio Medici was no sooner published than it excited the
attention of the publick, by the novelty of paradoxes, the dignity of
sentiment, the quick succession of images, the multitude of abstruse
allusions, the subtilty of disquisition, and the strength of language.

What is much read will be much criticised. The earl of Dorset
recommended this book to the perusal of sir Kenelm Digby, who returned
his judgment upon it, not in a letter, but a book; in which, though
mingled with some positions fabulous and uncertain, there are acute
remarks, just censures, and profound speculations; yet its principal
claim to admiration is, that it was written in twenty-four hours [74],
of which part was spent in procuring Browne's book, and part in
reading it.

Of these animadversions, when they were yet not all printed, either
officiousness or malice informed Dr. Browne; who wrote to sir Kenelm,
with much softness and ceremony, declaring the unworthiness of his
work to engage such notice, the intended privacy of the composition,
and the corruptions of the impression; and received an answer equally
genteel and respectful, containing high commendations of the piece,
pompous professions of reverence, meek acknowledgments of inability,
and anxious apologies for the hastiness of his remarks.

The reciprocal civility of authors is one of the most risible scenes
in the farce of life. Who would not have thought, that these two
luminaries of their age had ceased to endeavour to grow bright by the
obscuration of each other? yet the animadversions thus weak, thus
precipitate, upon a book thus injured in the transcription, quickly
passed the press; and Religio Medici was more accurately published,
with an admonition prefixed, "to those who have or shall peruse the
observations upon a former corrupt copy;" in which there is a severe
censure, not upon Digby, who was to be used with ceremony, but upon
the observator who had usurped his name; nor was this invective
written by Dr. Browne, who was supposed to be satisfied with his
opponent's apology; but by some officious friend, zealous for his
honour, without his consent.

Browne has, indeed, in his own preface, endeavoured to secure himself
from rigorous examination, by alleging, that "many things are
delivered rhetorically, many expressions merely tropical, and,
therefore, many things to be taken in a soft and flexible sense, and
not to be called unto the rigid test of reason.
" The first glance upon
his book will, indeed, discover examples of this liberty of thought
and expression: "I could be content," says he, "to be nothing almost
to eternity, if I might enjoy my Saviour at the last. " He has little
acquaintance with the acuteness of Browne, who suspects him of a
serious opinion, that any thing can be "almost eternal," or that any
time beginning and ending is not infinitely less than infinite
duration.

In this book he speaks much, and, in the opinion of Digby, too much of
himself; but with such generality and conciseness, as affords very
little light to his biographer: he declares, that, besides the
dialects of different provinces, he understood six languages; that he
was no stranger to astronomy; and that he had seen several countries;
but what most awakens curiosity is, his solemn assertion, that "his
life has been a miracle of thirty years; which to relate were not
history, but a piece of poetry, and would sound like a fable. "

There is, undoubtedly, a sense in which all life is miraculous; as it
is an union of powers of which we can image no connexion, a succession
of motions, of which the first cause must be supernatural; but life,
thus explained, whatever it may have of miracle, will have nothing of
fable; and, therefore, the author undoubtedly had regard to something,
by which he imagined himself distinguished from the rest of mankind.

Of these wonders, however, the view that can be now taken of his life
offers no appearance. The course of his education was like that of
others, such as put him little in the way of extraordinary casualties.
A scholastick and academical life is very uniform; and has, indeed,
more safety than pleasure. A traveller has greater opportunities of
adventure; but Browne traversed no unknown seas, or Arabian deserts;
and, surely, a man may visit France and Italy, reside at Montpellier
and Padua, and, at last, take his degree at Leyden, without any thing
miraculous. What it was that would, if it was related, sound so
poetical and fabulous, we are left to guess; I believe without hope of
guessing rightly. The wonders, probably, were transacted in his own
mind; self-love, cooperating with an imagination vigorous and fertile
as that of Browne, will find or make objects of astonishment in every
man's life; and, perhaps, there is no human being, however bid in the
crowd from the observation of his fellow-mortals, who, if he has
leisure and disposition to recollect his own thoughts and actions,
will not conclude his life in some sort a miracle, and imagine himself
distinguished from all the rest of his species by many discriminations
of nature or of fortune.

The success of this performance was such as might naturally encourage
the author to new undertakings. A gentleman of Cambridge [75], whose
name was Merryweather, turned it not inelegantly into Latin; and from
his version it was again translated into Italian, German, Dutch, and
French; and, at Strasburg, the Latin translation was published with
large notes, by Levinus Nicolaus Moltkenius. Of the English
annotations, which in all the editions, from 1644, accompany the book,
the author is unknown.

Of Merryweather, to whose zeal Browne was so much indebted for the
sudden extension of his renown, I know nothing, but that he published
a small treatise for the instruction of young-persons in the
attainment of a Latin style. He printed his translation in Holland
with some difficulty [76]. The first printer to whom he offered it,
carried it to Salmasius, "who laid it by," says he, "in state for
three months," and then discouraged its publication: it was afterwards
rejected by two other printers, and, at last, was received by Hackius.

The peculiarities of this book raised the author, as is usual, many
admirers and many enemies; but we know not of more than one professed
answer, written under the title of Medicus Medicatus [77], by
Alexander Ross, which was universally neglected by the world.

At the time when this book was published, Dr. Browne resided at
Norwich, where he had settled in 1636, by the persuasion of Dr.
Lushington [78], his tutor, who was then rector of Barnham Westgate,
in the neighbourhood. It is recorded by Wood, that his practice was
very extensive, and that many patients resorted to him. In 1637 he was
incorporated doctor of physick in Oxfordf [79].

He married, in 1641, Mrs. Mileham [80], of a good family in Norfolk;
"a lady," says Whitefoot, "of such symmetrical proportion to her
worthy husband, both in the graces of her body and mind, that they
seemed to come together by a kind of natural magnetism. "

This marriage could not but draw the raillery of contemporary wits
[81] upon a man who had just been wishing, in his new book, "that we
might procreate, like trees, without conjunction," and had lately
declared [82], that "the whole world was made for man, but only the
twelfth part of man for woman;" and, that "man is the whole world, but
woman only the rib or crooked part of man. "

Whether the lady had been yet informed of these contemptuous
positions, or whether she was pleased with the conquest of so
formidable a rebel, and considered it as a double triumph, to attract
so much merit, and overcome so powerful prejudices; or whether, like
most others, she married upon mingled motives, between convenience and
inclination; she had, however, no reason to repent, for she lived
happily with him one-and-forty years, and bore him ten children, of
whom one son and three daughters outlived their parents: she survived
him two years, and passed her widowhood in plenty, if not in opulence.

Browne having now entered the world as an author, and experienced the
delights of praise and molestations of censure, probably found his
dread of the publick eye diminished; and, therefore, was not long
before he trusted his name to the criticks a second time; for, in 1646
[83], he printed Inquiries into vulgar and common Errours; a work,
which, as it arose not from fancy and invention, but from observation
and books, and contained not a single discourse of one continued
tenour, of which the latter part arose from the former, but an
enumeration of many unconnected particulars, must have been the
collection of years, and the effect of a design early formed and long
pursued, to which his remarks had been continually referred, and which
arose gradually to its present bulk by the daily aggregation of new
particles of knowledge. It is, indeed, to be wished, that he had
longer delayed the publication, and added what the remaining part of
his life might have furnished: the thirty-six years which he spent
afterwards in study and experience, would, doubtless, have made large
additions to an inquiry into vulgar errours. He published, in 1673,
the sixth edition, with some improvements; but I think rather with
explication of what he had already written, than any new heads of
disquisition. But with the work, such as the author, whether hindered
from continuing it by eagerness of praise, or weariness of labour,
thought fit to give, we must be content; and remember, that in all
sublunary things there is something to be wished which we must wish in
vain.

This book, like his former, was received with great applause, was
answered by Alexander Ross, and translated into Dutch and German, and,
not many years ago, into French. It might now be proper, had not the
favour with which it was at first received filled the kingdom with
copies, to reprint it with notes, partly supplemental, and partly
emendatory, to subjoin those discoveries which the industry of the
last age has made, and correct those mistakes which the author has
committed, not by idleness or negligence, but for want of Boyle's and
Newton's philosophy.

He appears, indeed, to have been willing to pay labour for truth.
Having heard a flying rumour of sympathetick needles, by which,
suspended over a circular alphabet, distant friends or lovers might
correspond, he procured two such alphabets to be made, touched his
needles with the same magnet, and placed them upon proper spindles:
the result was, that when he moved one of his needles, the other,
instead of taking, by sympathy, the same direction, "stood like the
pillars of Hercules. " That it continued motionless, will be easily
believed; and most men would have been content to believe it, without
the labour of so hopeless an experiment. Browne might himself have
obtained the same conviction by a method less operose, if he had
thrust his needles through corks, and set them afloat in two basins of
water.

Notwithstanding his zeal to detect old errours, he seems not very easy
to admit new positions, for he never mentions the motion of the earth
but with contempt and ridicule, though the opinion which admits it was
then growing popular, and was surely plausible, even before it was
confirmed by later observations.

The reputation of Browne encouraged some low writer to publish, under
his name, a book called [84] Nature's Cabinet unlocked,--translated,
according to Wood, from the physicks of Magirus; of which Browne took
care to clear himself, by modestly advertising, that "if any man had
been benefited by it, he was not so ambitious as to challenge the
honour thereof, as having no hand in that work [85]. "

In 1658, the discovery of some ancient urns in Norfolk gave him
occasion to write Hydriotaphia, Urn-Burial, or a Discourse of
sepulchral Urns; in which he treats, with his usual learning, on the
funeral rites of the ancient nations; exhibits their various treatment
of the dead; and examines the substances found in his Norfolcian urns.
There is, perhaps, none of his works which better exemplifies his
reading or memory. It is scarcely to be imagined, how many particulars
he has amassed together, in a treatise which seems to have been
occasionally written; and for which, therefore, no materials could
have been previously collected. It is, indeed, like other treatises of
antiquity, rather for curiosity than use; for it is of small
importance to know which nation buried their dead in the ground, which
threw them into the sea, or which gave them to birds and beasts; when
the practice of cremation began, or when it was disused; whether the
bones of different persons were mingled in the same urn; what
oblations were thrown into the pyre; or how the ashes of the body were
distinguished from those of other substances. Of the uselessness of
these inquiries, Browne seems not to have been ignorant; and,
therefore, concludes them with an observation which can never be too
frequently recollected:

"All, or most apprehensions, rested in opinions of some future being,
which, ignorantly or coldly believed, begat those perverted
conceptions, ceremonies, sayings, which christians pity or laugh at.
Happy are they, which live not in that disadvantage of time, when men
could say little for futurity, but from reason; whereby the noblest
mind fell often upon doubtful deaths, and melancholy dissolutions:
with these hopes Socrates warmed his doubtful spirits against the cold
potion; and Cato, before he durst give the fatal stroke, spent part of
the night in reading the immortality of Plato, thereby confirming his
wavering hand unto the animosity of that attempt.

"It is the heaviest stone that melancholy can throw at a man, to tell
him he is at the end of his nature; or that there is no further state
to come, unto which this seems progressional, and otherwise made in
vain: without this accomplishment, the natural expectation and desire
of such a state were but a fallacy in nature: unsatisfied
considerators would quarrel at the justness of the constitution, and
rest content that Adam had fallen lower, whereby, by knowing no other
original, and deeper ignorance of themselves, they might have enjoyed
the happiness of inferiour creatures, who in tranquillity possess
their constitutions, as having not the apprehension to deplore their
own natures; and being framed below the circumference of these hopes
of cognition of better things, the wisdom of God hath necessitated
their contentment. But the superiour ingredient and obscured part of
ourselves, whereto all present felicities afford no resting
contentment, will be able, at last, to tell us we are more than our
present selves; and evacuate such hopes in the fruition of their own
accomplishments. "

To his treatise on urn-burial, was added the Garden of Cyrus, or the
quincunxial Lozenge, or network Plantation of the Ancients,
artificially, naturally, mystically, considered. This discourse he
begins with the Sacred Garden, in which the first man was placed; and
deduces the practice of horticulture, from the earliest accounts of
antiquity to the time of the Persian Cyrus, the first man whom we
actually know to have planted a quincunx; which, however, our author
is inclined to believe of longer date, and not only discovers it in
the description of the hanging gardens of Babylon, but seems willing
to believe, and to persuade his reader, that it was practised by the
feeders on vegetables before the flood.

Some of the most pleasing performances have been produced by learning
and genius, exercised upon subjects of little importance. It seems to
have been, in all ages, the pride of wit, to show how it could exalt
the low, and amplify the little. To speak not inadequately of things
really and naturally great, is a task not only diflicult but
disagreeable; because the writer is degraded in his own eyes, by
standing in comparison with his subject, to which he can hope to add
nothing from his imagination: but it is a perpetual triumph of fancy
to expand a scanty theme, to raise glittering ideas from obscure
properties, and to produce to the world an object of wonder, to which
nature had contributed little. To this ambition, perhaps, we owe the
frogs of Homer, the gnat and the bees of Virgil, the butterfly of
Spenser, the shadow of Wowerus, and the quincunx of Browne.

In the prosecution of this sport of fancy, he considers every
production of art and nature, in which he could find any decussation
or approaches to the form of a quincunx; and, as a man once resolved
upon ideal discoveries seldom searches long in vain, he finds his
favourite figure in almost every thing, whether natural or invented,
ancient or modern, rude or artificial, sacred or civil; so that a
reader, not watchful against the power of his infusions, would imagine
that decussation was the great business of the world, and that nature
and art had no other purpose than to exemplify and imitate a quincunx.

To show the excellence of this figure, he enumerates all its
properties; and finds it in almost every thing of use or pleasure: and
to show how readily he supplies what he cannot find, one instance may
be sufficient: "though therein," says he, "we meet not with right
angles, yet every rhombus containing four angles equal unto two right,
it virtually contains two right in every one. "

The fanciful sports of great minds are never without some advantage to
knowledge. Browne has interspersed many curious observations on the
form of plants, and the laws of vegetation; and appears to have been a
very accurate observer of the modes of germination, and to have
watched, with great nicety, the evolution of the parts of plants from
their seminal principles.

He is then naturally led to treat of the number five; and finds, that
by this number many things are circumscribed; that there are five
kinds of vegetable productions, five sections of a cone, five orders
of architecture, and five acts of a play. And observing that five was
the ancient conjugal, or wedding number, he proceeds to a speculation,
which I shall give in his own words: "the ancient numerists made out
the conjugal number by two and three, the first parity and imparity,
the active and passive digits, the material and formal principles in
generative societies. "

These are all the tracts which he published. But many papers were
found in his closet: "some of them," says Whitefoot, "designed for the
press, were often transcribed and corrected by his own hand, after the
fashion of great and curious writers. "

Of these, two collections have been published; one by Dr. Tenison, the
other, in 1722, by a nameless editor. Whether the one or the other
selected those pieces, which the author would have preferred, cannot
be known; but they have both the merit of giving to mankind what was
too valuable to be suppressed; and what might, without their
interposition, have, perhaps, perished among other innumerable labours
of learned men, or have been burnt in a scarcity of fuel, like the
papers of Pierescius.

The first of these posthumous treatises contains Observations upon
several Plants mentioned in Scripture: these remarks, though they do
not immediately either rectify the faith, or refine the morals of the
reader, yet are by no means to be censured as superfluous niceties, or
useless speculations; for they often show some propriety of
description, or elegance of allusion, utterly undiscoverable to
readers not skilled in oriental botany; and are often of more
important use, as they remove some difficulty from narratives, or some
obscurity from precepts.

The next is, of Garlands, or coronary and garland Plants; a subject
merely of learned curiosity, without any other end than the pleasure
of reflecting on ancient customs, or on the industry with which
studious men have endeavoured to recover them.

The next is a letter, on the Fishes eaten by our Saviour with his
Disciples, after his Resurrection from the Dead: which contains no
determinate resolution of the question, what they were, for, indeed,
it cannot be determined. All the information that diligence or
learning could supply, consists in an enumeration of the fishes
produced in the waters of Judea.

Then follow, Answers to certain Queries about Fishes, Birds, Insects;
and a Letter of Hawks and Falconry, ancient and modern; in the first
of which he gives the proper interpretation of some ancient names of
animals, commonly mistaken; and in the other, has some curious
observations on the art of hawking, which he considers as a practice
unknown to the ancients. I believe all our sports of the field are of
Gothick original; the ancients neither hunted by the scent, nor seemed
much to have practised horsemanship, as an exercise; and though in
their works there is mention of _aucupium_ and _piscatio_,
they seemed no more to have been considered as diversions, than
agriculture, or any other manual labour.

In two more letters, he speaks of the cymbals of the Hebrews, but
without any satisfactory determination; and of _rhopalick_, or
gradual verses, that is, of verses beginning with a word of one
syllable, and proceeding by words of which each has a syllable more
than the former; as,

"O deus, aeterne stationis conciliator. " AUSONIUS.

And after this manner pursuing the hint, he mentions many other
restrained methods of versifying, to which industrious ignorance has
sometimes voluntarily subjected itself.

His next attempt is, on Languages, and particularly the Saxon Tongue.
He discourses with great learning, and generally with great justness,
of the derivation and changes of languages; but, like other men of
multifarious learning, he receives some notions without examination.
Thus he observes, according to the popular opinion, that the Spaniards
have retained so much Latin as to be able to compose sentences that
shall be, at once, grammatically Latin and Castilian: this will appear
very unlikely to a man that considers the Spanish terminations; and
Howell, who was eminently skilful in the three provincial languages,
declares, that, after many essays, he never could effect it [86].

The principal design of this letter, is to show the affinity between
the modern English, and the ancient Saxon; and he observes, very
rightly, that "though we have borrowed many substantives, adjectives,
and some verbs, from the French; yet the great body of numerals,
auxiliary verbs, articles, pronouns, adverbs, conjunctions, and
prepositions, which are the distinguishing and lasting parts of a
language, remain with us from the Saxon. "

To prove this position more evidently, he has drawn up a short
discourse of six paragraphs, in Saxon and English; of which every word
is the same in both languages, excepting the terminations and
orthography. The words are, indeed, Saxon, but the phraseology is
English; and, I think, would not have been understood by Bede or
Elfric, notwithstanding the confidence of our author. He has, however,
sufficiently proved his position, that the English resembles its
paternal language more than any modern European dialect.

There remain five tracts of this collection yet unmentioned; one, of
artificial Hills, Mounts, or Barrows, in England; in reply to an
interrogatory letter of E. D. whom the writers of the Biographia
Britannica suppose to be, if rightly printed, W. D. or sir William
Dugdale, one of Browne's correspondents. These are declared by Browne,
in concurrence, I think, with all other antiquaries, to be, for the
most part, funeral monuments. He proves, that both the Danes and
Saxons buried their men of eminence under piles of earth, "which
admitting," says he "neither ornament, epitaph, nor inscription, may,
if earthquakes spare them, outlast other monuments: obelisks have
their term, and pyramids will tumble; but these mountainous monuments
may stand, and are like to have the same period with the earth. "

In the next, he answers two geographical questions; one concerning
Troas, mentioned in the acts and epistles of St. Paul, which he
determines to be the city built near the ancient Ilium; and the other
concerning the Dead sea, of which he gives the same account with other
writers.

Another letter treats of the Answers of the Oracle of Apollo, at
Delphos, to Croesus, king of Lydia. In this tract nothing deserves
notice, more than that Browne considers the oracles as evidently and
indubitably supernatural, and founds all his disquisition upon that
postulate. He wonders why the physiologists of old, having such means
of instruction, did not inquire into the secrets of nature: but
judiciously concludes, that such questions would probably have been
vain; "for in matters cognoscible, and formed for our disquisition,
our industry must be our oracle, and reason our Apollo. "

The pieces that remain are, a Prophecy concerning the future State of
several Nations; in which Browne plainly discovers his expectation to
be the same with that entertained lately, with more confidence, by Dr.
Berkeley, "that America will be the seat of the fifth empire;" and,
Museum clausum, sive Bibliotheca abscondita: in which the author
amuses himself with imagining the existence of books and curiosities,
either never in being or irrecoverably lost.

These pieces I have recounted, as they are ranged in Tenison's
collection, because the editor has given no account of the time at
which any of them were written.

Some of them are of little value, more than as they gratify the mind
with the picture of a great scholar, turning his learning into
amusement; or show upon how great a variety of inquiries, the same
mind has been successfully employed.

The other collection of his posthumous pieces, published in octavo,
London, 1722, contains Repertorium; or some account of the Tombs and
Monuments in the Cathedral of Norwich; where, as Tenison observes,
there is not matter proportionate to the skill of the antiquary.

The other pieces are, Answers to sir William Dugdale's Inquiries about
the Fens; a letter concerning Ireland; another relating to urns newly
discovered; some short strictures on different subjects; and a Letter
to a Friend on the Death of his intimate Friend, published singly by
the author's son, in 1690.

There is inserted in the Biographia Britannica, a Letter containing
Instructions for the Study of Physick: which, with the essays here
offered to the publick, completes the works of Dr. Browne.

To the life of this learned man, there remains little to be added, but
that, in 1665, he was chosen honorary fellow of the college of
physicians, as a man, "virtute et literis ornatissimus," eminently
embellished with literature and virtue; and in 1671, received, at
Norwich, the honour of knighthood from Charles the second, a prince,
who, with many frailties and vices, had yet skill to discover
excellence, and virtue to reward it with such honorary distinctions,
at least, as cost him nothing, yet, conferred by a king so judicious
and so much beloved, had the power of giving merit new lustre and
greater popularity.

Thus he lived in high reputation, till, in his seventy-sixth year, he
was seized with a colick, which, after having tortured him about a
week, put an end to his life at Norwich, on his birthday, October, 19,
1682 [87]. Some of his last words were expressions of submission to
the will of God, and fearlessness of death.

He lies buried in the church of St. Peter Mancroft, in Norwich, with
this inscription on a mural monument, placed on the south pillar of
the altar:

M. S.
Hic situs est THOMAS BROWNE, M. D.
Et miles.
Anno 1605, Londini natus;
Generosa familia apud Upton
In agro Cestriensi oriundus.
Schola pritnum Wintoniensi, postea
In Coll. Pembr.
Apud Oxonienses bonis literis
Haud leviter imbutus;
In urbe hac Nordovicensi medicinam
Arte egregia, et foelici successu professus;
Scriptis quibus tituli, RELIGIO MEDICI
Et PSEUDODOXIA EPIDEMICA, aliisque
Per orbem notissimus.
Vir prudentissimus, integerrimus, doctissimus;
Obijt Octob. 19, 1682.
Pie posuit moestissima conjux
Da. Doroth. Br.

Near the foot of this pillar
Lies Sir Thomas Browne, knt. and doctor in physick,
Author of Religio Medici, and other learned books,
Who practised physick in this city 46 years,
And died Oct. 1682, in the 77th year of his age.
In memory of whom,
Dame Dorothy Browne, who had been his affectionate
Wife 47 years, caused this monument to be
Erected.

Besides this lady, who died in 1685, he left a son and three
daughters. Of the daughters nothing very remarkable is known; but his
son, Edward Browne, requires a particular mention.

He was born about the year 1642; and, after having passed through the
classes of the school at Norwich, became bachelor of physick at
Cambridge; and afterwards removing to Merton college in Oxford, was
admitted there to the same degree, and afterwards made a doctor. In
1668 he visited part of Germany; and in the year following made a
wider excursion into Austria, Hungary, and Thessaly; where the Turkish
sultan then kept his court at Larissa. He afterwards passed through
Italy. His skill in natural history made him particularly attentive to
mines and metallurgy. Upon his return, he published an account of the
countries through which he had passed; which I have heard commended by
a learned traveller, who has visited many places after him, as written
with scrupulous and exact veracity, such as is scarcely to be found in
any other book of the same kind. But whatever it may contribute to the
instruction of a naturalist, I cannot recommend it, as likely to give
much pleasure to common readers; for, whether it be that the world is
very uniform, and, therefore, he who is resolved to adhere to truth
will have few novelties to relate; or, that Dr. Browne was, by the
train of his studies, led to inquire most after those things by which
the greatest part of mankind is little affected; a great part of his
book seems to contain very unimportant accounts of his passage from
one place where he saw little, to another where he saw no more.

Upon his return, he practised physick in London; was made physician
first to Charles the second, and afterwards, in 1682, to St.
Bartholomew's hospital. About the same time, he joined his name to
those of many other eminent men, in a translation of Plutarch's lives.
He was first censor, then elect, and treasurer of the college of
physicians; of which, in 1705, he was chosen president, and held his
office till, in 1708, he died, in a degree of estimation suitable to a
man so variously accomplished, that king Charles had honoured him with
this panegyrick, that "he was as learned as any of the college, and as
well bred as any of the court. "

Of every great and eminent character, part breaks forth into publick
view, and part lies hid in domestick privacy. Those qualities, which
have been exerted in any known and lasting performances, may, at any
distance of time, be traced and estimated; but silent excellencies are
soon forgotten; and those minute peculiarities which discriminate
every man from all others, if they are not recorded by those whom
personal knowledge enables to observe them, are irrecoverably lost.
This mutilation of character must have happened, among many others, to
sir Thomas Browne, had it not been delineated by his friend Mr.
Whitefoot, "who esteemed it an especial favour of providence, to have
had a particular acquaintance with him for two-thirds of his life. "
Part of his observations I shall therefore copy.

"For a character of his person, his complexion and hair was answerable
to his name; his stature was moderate, and a habit of body neither fat
nor lean, but [Greek: eusarkos].

"In his habit of clothing, he had an aversion to all finery, and
affected plainness, both in the fashion and ornaments. He ever wore a
cloak, or boots, when few others did. He kept himself always very
warm, and thought it most safe so to do, though he never loaded
himself with such a multitude of garments, as Suetonius reports of
Augustus, enough to clothe a good family.

"The horizon of his understanding was much larger than the hemisphere
of the world: all that was visible in the heavens he comprehended so
well, that few that are under them knew so much: he could tell the
number of the visible stars in his horizon, and call them all by their
names that had any; and of the earth he had such a minute and exact
geographical knowledge, as if he had been by divine providence
ordained surveyor-general of the whole terrestrial orb, and its
products, minerals, plants, and animals. He was so curious a botanist,
that, besides the specifical distinctions, he made nice and elaborate
observations, equally useful as entertaining.

"His memory, though not so eminent as that of Seneca or Scaliger, was
capacious and tenacious, insomuch as he remembered all that was
remarkable in any book that he had read; and not only knew all
person's again that he had ever seen, at any distance of time, but
remembered the circumstances of their bodies, and their particular
discourses and speeches.

"In the Latin poets he remembered every thing that was acute and
pungent; he had read most of the historians, ancient and modern,
wherein his observations were singular, not taken notice of by common
readers; he was excellent company when he was at leisure, and
expressed more light than heat in the temper of his brain.

"He had no despotical power over his affections and passions, (that
was a privilege of original perfection, forfeited by the neglect of
the use of it,) but as large a political power over them, as any
stoick, or man of his time; whereof he gave so great experiment, that
he hath very rarely been known to have been overcome with any of them.
The strongest that were found in him, both of the irascible and
concupiscible, were under the control of his reason. Of admiration,
which is one of them, being the only product either of ignorance or
uncommon knowledge, he had more and less than other men, upon the same
account of his knowing more than others; so that though he met with
many rarities, he admired them not so much as others do.

"He was never seen to be transported with mirth, or dejected with
sadness; always cheerful, but rarely merry, at any sensible rate;
seldom heard to break a jest; and when he did, he would be apt to
blush at the levity of it: his gravity was natural, without
affectation.

"His modesty was visible in a natural habitual blush, which was
increased upon the least occasion, and oft discovered without any
observable cause.

"They that knew no more of him than by the briskness of his writings,
found themselves deceived in their expectation, when they came in his
company, noting the gravity and sobriety of his aspect and
conversation; so free from loquacity or much talkativeness, that he
was sometimes difficult to be engaged in any discourse; though when he
was so, it was always singular, and never trite or vulgar.
Parsimonious in nothing but his time, whereof he made as much
improvement, with as little loss as any man in it: when he had any to
spare from his drudging practice, he was scarce patient of any
diversion from his study; so impatient of sloth and idleness, that he
would say, he could not do nothing.

"Sir Thomas understood most of the European languages; viz. all that
are in Hutter's Bible, which he made use of. The Latin and Greek he
understood critically; the oriental languages, which never were
vernacular in this part of the world, he thought the use of them would
not answer the time and pains of learning them; yet had so great a
veneration for the matrix of them, viz. the Hebrew, consecrated to the
oracles of God, that he was not content to be totally ignorant of it;
though very little of his science is to be found in any books of that
primitive language. And though much is said to be written in the
derivative idioms of that tongue, especially the Arabick, yet he was
satisfied with the translations, wherein he found nothing admirable.

"In his religion he continued in the same mind which he had declared
in his first book, written when he was but thirty years old, his
Religio Medici, wherein he fully assented to that of the church of
England, preferring it before any in the world, as did the learned
Grotius. He attended the publick service very constantly, when he was
not withheld by his practice; never missed the sacrament in his
parish, if he were in town; read the best English sermons he could
hear of, with liberal applause; and delighted not in controversies. In
his last sickness, wherein he continued about a week's time, enduring
great pain of the colick, besides a continual fever, with as much
patience as hath been seen in any man, without any pretence of stoical
apathy, animosity, or vanity of not being concerned thereat, or
suffering no impeachment of happiness: 'Nihil agis, dolor. '

"His patience was founded upon the Christian philosophy, and a sound
faith of God's providence, and a meek and holy submission thereunto,
which he expressed in few words. I visited him near his end, when he
had not strength to hear or speak much; the last words which I heard
from him were, besides some expressions of dearness, that he did
freely submit to the will of God, being without fear; he had often
triumphed over the king of terrours in others, and given many repulses
in the defence of patients; but, when his own turn came, he submitted
with a meek, rational, and religious courage.

"He might have made good the old saying of 'dat Galenus opes,' had he
lived in a place that could have afforded it. But his indulgence and
liberality to his children, especially in their travels, two of his
sons in divers countries, and two of his daughters in France, spent
him more than a little. He was liberal in his house entertainments and
in his charity: he left a comfortable, but no great estate, both to
his lady and children, gained by his own industry.

"Such was his sagacity and knowledge of all history, ancient and
modern, and his observations thereupon so singular, that, it hath been
said, by them that knew him best, that, if his profession, and place
of abode, would have suited, his ability, he would have made an
extraordinary man for the privy council, not much inferiour to the
famous Padre Paulo, the late oracle of the Venetian state.

"Though he were no prophet, nor son of a prophet, yet in that faculty
which comes nearest it, he excelled, i. e. the stochastick, wherein he
was seldom mistaken, as to future events, as well publick as private;
but not apt to discover any presages or superstition. "

It is observable, that he, who, in his earlier years, had read all the
books against religion, was, in the latter part of his life, averse
from controversies. To play with important truths, to disturb the
repose of established tenets, to subtilize objections, and elude
proof, is too often the sport of youthful vanity, of which maturer
experience commonly repents. There is a time when every man is weary
of raising difficulties only to task himself with the solution, and
desires to enjoy truth without the labour or hazard of contest. There
is, perhaps, no better method of encountering these troublesome
irruptions of skepticism, with which inquisitive minds are frequently
harassed, than that which Browne declares himself to have taken: "If
there arise any doubts in my way, I do forget them; or, at least,
defer them, till my better settled judgment, and more manly reason, be
able to resolve them: for I perceive every man's reason is his best
Oedipus, and will, upon a reasonable truce, find a way to loose those
bonds, wherewith the subtilties of errour have enchained our more
flexible and tender judgments. "

The foregoing character may be confirmed and enlarged by many passages
in the Religio Medici; in which it appears, from Whitefoot's
testimony, that the author, though no very sparing panegyrist of
himself, had not exceeded the truth, with respect to his attainments
or visible qualities.

There are, indeed, some interiour and secret virtues, which a man may,
sometimes, have without the knowledge of others; and may, sometimes,
assume to himself, without sufficient reasons for his opinion. It is
charged upon Browne, by Dr. Watts, as an instance of arrogant
temerity, that, after a long detail of his attainments, he declares
himself to have escaped "the first and father-sin of pride. " A perusal
of the Religio Medici will not much contribute to produce a belief of
the author's exemption from this father-sin; pride is a vice, which
pride itself inclines every man to find in others, and to overlook in
himself.

As easily may we be mistaken in estimating our own courage, as our own
humility; and, therefore, when Browne shows himself persuaded, that
"he could lose an arm without a tear, or, with a few groans, be
quartered to pieces," I am not sure that he felt in himself any
uncommon powers of endurance; or, indeed, any thing more than a sudden
effervescence of imagination, which, uncertain and involuntary as it
is, he mistook for settled resolution.

"That there were not many extant, that, in a noble way, feared the
face of death less than himself," he might, likewise, believe at a
very easy expense, while death was yet at a distance; but the time
will come, to every human being, when it must be known how well he can
bear to die; and it has appeared that our author's fortitude did not
desert him in the great hour of trial.

It was observed, by some of the remarkers on the Religio Medici, that
"the author was yet alive, and might grow worse as well as better:" it
is, therefore, happy, that this suspicion can be obviated by a
testimony given to the continuance of his virtue, at a time when death
had set him free from danger of change, and his panegyrist from
temptation to flattery.

But it is not on the praises of others, but on his own writings, that
he is to depend for the esteem of posterity; of which he will not
easily be deprived, while learning shall have any reverence among men;
for there is no science in which he does not discover some skill; and
scarce any kind of knowledge, profane or sacred, abstruse or elegant,
which he does not appear to have cultivated with success.

His exuberance of knowledge, and plenitude of ideas, sometimes
obstruct the tendency of his reasoning and the clearness of his
decisions: on whatever subject he employed his mind, there started up
immediately so many images before him, that he lost one by grasping
another. His memory supplied him with so many illustrations, parallel
or dependent notions, that he was always starting into collateral
considerations; but the spirit and vigour of his pursuit always gives
delight; and the reader follows him, without reluctance, through his
mazes, in themselves flowery and pleasing, and ending at the point
originally in view.

"To have great excellencies and great faults, 'magnae; virtutes nee
minora vitia,' is the poesy," says our author, "of the best natures. "
This poesy may be properly applied to the style of Browne; it is
vigorous, but rugged; it is learned, but pedantick; it is deep, but
obscure; it strikes, but does not please; it commands, but does not
allure; his tropes are harsh, and his combinations uncouth.

He fell into an age in which our language began to lose the stability
which it had obtained in the time of Elizabeth; and was considered by
every writer as a subject on which he might try his plastick skill, by
moulding it according to his own fancy. Milton, in consequence of this
encroaching license, began to introduce the Latin idiom: and Browne,
though he gave less disturbance to our structures in phraseology, yet
poured in a multitude of exotick words; many, indeed, useful and
significant, which, if rejected, must be supplied by circumlocution,
such as _commensality_, for the state of many living at the same
table; but many superfluous, as a _paralogical_, for an unreasonable
doubt; and some so obscure, that they conceal his meaning rather than
explain it, as _arthritical analogies_, for parts that serve some
animals in the place of joints.

His style is, indeed, a tissue of many languages; a mixture of
heterogeneous words, brought together from distant regions, with terms
originally appropriated to one art, and drawn by violence into the
service of another. He must, however, be confessed to have augmented
our philosophical diction; and, in defence of his uncommon words and
expressions, we must consider, that he had uncommon sentiments, and
was not content to express, in many words, that idea for which any
language could supply a single term.

But his innovations are sometimes pleasing, and his temerities happy:
he has many "verba ardentia" forcible expressions, which he would
never have found, but by venturing to the utmost verge of propriety;
and flights which would never have been reached, but by one who had
very little fear of the shame of falling.

There remains yet an objection against the writings of Browne, more
formidable than the animadversions of criticism. There are passages
from which some have taken occasion to rank him among deists, and
others among atheists. It would be difficult to guess how any such
conclusion should be formed, had not experience shown that there are
two sorts of men willing to enlarge the catalogue of infidels.

It has been long observed, that an atheist has no just reason for
endeavouring conversions; and yet none harass those minds which they
can influence, with more importunity of solicitation to adopt their
opinions. In proportion as they doubt the truth of their own
doctrines, they are desirous to gain the attestation of another
understanding: and industriously labour to win a proselyte, and
eagerly catch at the slightest pretence to dignify their sect with a
celebrated name [88].

The others become friends to infidelity only by unskilful hostility;
men of rigid orthodoxy, cautious conversation, and religious asperity.
Among these, it is, too frequently, the practice to make in their heat
concessions to atheism or deism, which their most confident advocates
had never dared to claim, or to hope. A sally of levity, an idle
paradox, an indecent jest, an unreasonable objection, are sufficient,
in the opinion of these men, to efface a name from the lists of
christianity, to exclude a soul from everlasting life.